Support Zach's Battle with Cervical Radiculopathy

Hello, my name is Zach and I'm an OEF vet. It took over 4 years in the acute phase of cervical radiculopathy to finally be diagnosed. It has been absolute hell, and a worsening one at that (nerve compression is no joke, and there will be some level of permanency to this).

I was in a high speed mutiple rollover off a ~100 foot cliff in Afghanistan in 2012 that broke the back of the guy next to me and knocked us all out (an NCO who was not in the rollover forbade us from telling the medic anything related to a head injury when we were sent to a local army medical center to be examined) . I've complained of trouble falling and staying asleep and chronic fatigue ever since. But what started in July of 2020 would absolutely ruin my life.

It's normal for neck type injuries to take months or years for symptoms to develop. Starting July 2020, I've had significant increase in pain in left neck/shoulder area, *difficulty with eye hand coordination (including inability to drive), leg and core stiffness and balance difficulty when on feet, speech difficulty, swallowing difficulty, massive increase in chronic fatigue (partially bedridden), headaches and worst of all just a horrible brain fried/dizziness/brain fog, and many more symptoms.

*But for real my use of arms/hands/fingers is getting very problematic. The weakness, the difficulty controlling finer motor movements, etc. In the profile pic - of a Nov '24 family gathering - I'm trying to keep a poker face but am really struggling to put back a puzzle gift in the box. And I've hardly gone to any family gatherings past ~4.5 years. I was in bed for basically two straight days after that gathering. Trying to function with a pinched nerve in head/neck area is like constantly running a marathon while taking a chemistry exam. I even had to have my brother take the AC unit out of window this fall since for the first time I didn't feel like I could safely do it.

Obviously, way more I could go on about the medical journey and how horribly my case was handled, symptoms, etc. But...seems like enough for now. Absolute miracle I got approved for non-service connected VA pension in 2022, but it is absolutely not enough to live on and all savings are gone now, to put it mildly. Just trying to pay down CC's, not become homeless with a severe disability, and seek outside healthcare if needed (fingers crossed I just get surgery where I'm at soon). I'll end with my former army unit's moto: To The Limit!